I was wondering what the simplest and cheapest way to create a reliable mobile app (android or iphone) would be for the following situations. We are about to pick one of the following two situations:

If I want the mobile app to mainly contain links or buttons that direct you to specific webpages.

If I want the mobile app to contain an expert system, where each link is basically a question that will load you an alternate set of text depending on which link or button you chose.

Are either of these simple to make and free of cost to develop? We're looking for the most simple and direct way to go about this.

The final goal is to be able to make this app available in the android market or apple store (for a small, one-time fee for users who want to use it). Is this a step that can be planned out after the creation of the app itself, or does this need to be taken into account from the start?

2 Answers
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Well, it should not be too hard depending on your level of knowledge of Objective C and Java. If I were you, check out a book called iPhone Programming The big nerd ranch guide by Joe Conway and Aaron Hillegass. That should get you going in the right direction for iPhone programming. Android I can not really say as I do not know much about it nor have read up on it. I would suggest just searching for free Android OS books. Google is usually open arms about their stuff and giving out free resources about their products. I hope that points you in the right direction

If you're familiar with JavaScript, you can use Appcelerator Titanium to write your app in JS, and it will translate it into native apps for both the iPhone and Android. It's a pretty radical concept, and there are many claims that it produces buggy results for complex apps, but the same reviews claim that it works pretty well for simple apps, which yours definitely qualifies as. And since you're interacting with a web-based service, using JavaScript to develop the app might be more natural.

Titanium Studio is built on the same platform as Aptana (which is itself based on Eclipse) and is free.